Tuesday, August 6, 2013

This is why anyone who thinks that covert, massive surveillance of terrorists won't affect them is hopelessly naive. If the NSA passes nonterrorist surveillance to the DEA, it could just as easily be passing surveillance data about illegal file sharing or anything else. Evidently, the DEA has been doing this at least since 1994. From Reuters via Forbes contributor Rick Ungmar:

DEA agents are specifically instructed never to reveal nor discuss
the existence and utilization of SOD provided data and to further “omit
the SOD’s involvement from investigative reports, affidavits,
discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony. Agents are
instructed to then use ‘normal investigative techniques to recreate the
information provided by SOD.’”
...In law enforcement parlance, it is called “parallel construction.” Accordingly to a former federal agent, the SOD ‘tip’ system works as follows: “You’d be told only, ‘Be at a certain truck stop at a certain time
and look for a certain vehicle.’ And so we’d alert the state police to
find an excuse to stop that vehicle, and then have a drug dog search
it.” When the SOD tip leads to an arrest, the agents then pretend that the
drug bust was the surprise result of pulling the vehicle over as a
routine traffic stop. So secretive is the program, SOD requires that agents lie to the
judges, prosecuting attorneys and defense attorneys involved in a trial
of a defendant busted as a result of SOD surveillance—a complete and
clear violation of every American’s right to due process, even when that
American is a low-life drug dealer. Every criminal defendant is entitled to the legitimate data and facts
surrounding their arrest so that their counsel can examine the
propriety of the arrest and attack procedures that may be improper and
illegal under the law in defense of their client. When sensitive,
classified data is involved in such a case (data possibly collected in
surveillance of a foreign national that reveals incriminating evidence
involving an American), it is the prerogative of the judge to decide
what should and should not be admitted into evidence. As for the prosecutors, not everyone is enamored with the idea of such deceit, even if it produces convictions. Reports Reuters:

One current federal
prosecutor learned how agents were using SOD tips after a drug agent
misled him, the prosecutor told Reuters. In a Florida drug case he was
handling, the prosecutor said, a DEA agent told him the investigation of
a U.S. citizen began with a tip from an informant. When the prosecutor
pressed for more information, he said, a DEA supervisor intervened and
revealed that the tip had actually come through the SOD and from an NSA
intercept. “I was pissed,” the
prosecutor said. “Lying about where the information came from is a bad
start if you’re trying to comply with the law because it can lead to all
kinds of problems with discovery and candor to the court.” The
prosecutor never filed charges in the case because he lost confidence in
the investigation, he said.

...The disclosure of the SOD program is upsetting a great many legal and constitutional experts throughout the nation. Speaking to Reuters, Harvard Law Professor, Nancy Gertner—who also spent seventeen years on the bench as a federal judge—said,

“I have never heard of anything like this at all. It is one thing to
create special rules for national security. Ordinary crime is entirely
different. It sounds like they are phonying up investigations.” Other constitutional and legal experts point out that the program is
more disturbing than the recent NSA disclosures involving the collection
of phone metadata as the NSA effort is geared towards catching
terrorists while the DEA program is targeting common criminals who, as
Americans, are entitled to their constitutional protections no matter
what their alleged crimes.

Maynard (Bob "Gilligan's Island" Denver) slyly flashes a nipple to the CBS eye while trying to talk his best buddy Dobie Gillis (Dwayne Hick­man) into taking off all his clothes. Whoever said 1950s television was a vast waste­land obviously didn't know where to look.